Saturday, March 29, 2014

I am Forever Tour

Today I'm proud to be a part of the 'I am Forever', hosted by Dark World Books. You can view the rest of the tour spots by clicking on the banner above.

I Am Forever(What Kills Me #2)

Axelia fought an army of vampires and
survived. Once fated as the destroyer of the vampire race, she is now
welcomed into the immortal empire and revered as a god.

But instead of relishing her victory,
she faces a dangerous new world and an empire at war. Axelia is thrust
into the position of supreme vampire and caught in the crossfire of
battle. To make matters worse, her role alienates Lucas, the one vampire
that she trusts.

Her power spawns evil enemies. And they know how to get to her — by hurting those whom she loves most.

So
when 17-year-old Axelia falls into a sacred well filled with blood and
emerges a vampire, the immortal empire believes she is this legendary
destroyer. Hunted by soldiers and mercenaries, Axelia and her reluctant
ally, the vampire bladesmith Lucas, must battle to survive.An ancient prophecy warns of a girl destined to cause the extinction of the vampire race.

How will she convince the empire that
she is just an innocent teenager-turned bloodsucker and not a creature
of destruction? And if she cannot, can a vampire who is afraid of bugs
summon the courage to fight a nation of immortals?

Guest Post

How to avoid the curse of the bad sequel

No one sets out to do a bad sequel. But there
are a lot of them. Especially movie sequels (The Hangover 3, Dirty Dancing:
Havana Nights).

So here’s how I tried to make I Am Forever a worthy sequel to my
best-selling debut novel What Kills Me.

Make
sure the story evolves. Readers love franchises
because they want to spend more time with your characters and see what happens
next. In What Kills Me, Axelia aka
Zee dies and unwittingly becomes the most feared vampire in the world. She’s
hunted across continents. At the end of the novel, a stunning revelation
changes everything.

I Am
Forever picks up from where we left off. It answers
several key questions: How does Zee further evolve as the most powerful vamp in
history? How does the vampire Monarchy handle her? What happens to her human
family?

Don’t
just redo the first. So many sequels are a rehash
of the first story. What Kills Me was
simply an introduction to a new world. The formula for Zee was simple: run,
fight, survive. I Am Forever is so
much more complicated. Zee stops running and her emotions and the weight of
everything that has happened catch up to her. She faces new dangers, new powers
and new rules.

Create
new conflict. Conflict drives every story. A sequel
needs new threats and more difficult struggles. Your characters may have
overcome challenges in the first installment but as in life, there are always
new surprises in store.

Stay
true to the characters... The chemistry between Zee
and Lucas is a fan favorite. I was careful to honor their connection in I Am Forever. But Lucas and the Monarchy
don’t mix. So the more entangled that Zee becomes with the Monarchy, the more
she alienates the love of her undead life.

...but
flesh them out more. Zee’s been through a lot. I
threw her down a well filled with blood and then sent vampires and soldiers
with pointy objects after her. (And I’m not sorry!) In I Am Forever, she’s just as out of her element as she was in the
first book. The Monarchy is a messed up place. And they’re at war with rebels.
This place will test Zee like never before.

There's no cure for the pox, the deadly disease that's decimated most the population. Kat, one of the lucky survivors, trying to get to her last living relative, has decided the best way to stay alive is to stay alone. But that is until she meets Dylan who has no one else to live for. Convincing Kat that it's safer to stay in numbers, they start off on a journey through the barren wasteland to a new life. That's only if they can survive the disease, bands of armed and deadly children, and piles of burning pox-infested bodies.

Shauna Granger has written a different post-apocalyptic story and I was surprised at how the story turned out. Kat is also a different heroine in this type of story. She wasn't born and raised for this life. Far from it. As it does say Kat would 'rather drink lattes and read magazines' than be in a fight for survival. This is what I really liked about the story. She is just an average teenager who has really had to learn and adapt to her new environment in order to survive, which is especially hard since she doesn't have anyone to help her out but her own mistakes (which she can learn from) and instincts (which she develops).Granger's writing is beautifully descriptive and she was able to describe all the settings and actions wonderfully, which kept me engrossed in the story. The only part of the story that I found a bit lagging were the beginning chapters where Kat is alone. I just wanted her to do something, but alas nothing much happened. And then two things occurred. Kat met Blue and Dylan, and the story really picked up the pace and held my attention all the way to the end, giving plenty of twists and turns with an ending that has me beginning for the next story.I definitely look forward to the next story from Gardener, and I would recommend World of Ash to anyone who loves post-apocalyptic stories.

About the Author

Wynne Channing

Wynne Channing is a national newspaper
reporter and award-winning young adult novelist. Wynne loves telling
stories and as a journalist, she has interviewed everyone from Daniel
Radcliffe and Hugh Jackman to the president of the Maldives and Duchess
Sarah Ferguson. The closest she has come to interviewing a vampire is
sitting down with True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgard (he didn’t bite). She
briefly considered calling her debut novel “Well” so then everyone
would say: “Well written by Wynne Channing.”